Wii and HDTV, your own experience please

[bigpow]

Please share your experience.

I know that most Wii owners have standard def Wii and that Wii was not designed for HD, 16:9, etc - but I'm still very much curious, especially now that supply has caught up with demand and reasonable price is a reality.

I'm sure it will not look as good as my Xbox 360 at 1080p (via VGA), or my HTPC at 1080p (via DVI) - but is it really that bad?

I've been searching various online forums for people's experience when using Wii with HD display, yet so far, all were negative.

I even saw several comments where the Wii (not-so) HD component cable, to do 480p (HD? rrright...) is making some games look worse than the normal cable does at 480i.

So, again, I'd really appreciate your comments.

TIA

 

[xdreadpiratedoug]

Originally posted by: bigpow
Please share your experience.

I know that most Wii owners have standard def Wii and that Wii was not designed for HD, 16:9, etc - but I'm still very much curious, especially now that supply has caught up with demand and reasonable price is a reality.

I'm sure it will not look as good as my Xbox 360 at 1080p (via VGA), or my HTPC at 1080p (via DVI) - but is it really that bad?

I've been searching various online forums for people's experience when using Wii with HD display, yet so far, all were negative.

I even saw several comments where the Wii (not-so) HD component cable, to do 480p (HD? rrright...) is making some games look worse than the normal cable does at 480i.

So, again, I'd really appreciate your comments.

TIA

I've played the Wii on my friends 42" 1080p and I wasn't happy with it - everything does look very pixelated.

 

[MikeyLSU]

I have a 56" HDTV and had a Wii. Got it at launch, but didn't play it so I sold it.

I did buy component cables, and while that did help, it was still very pixalated, and more than that the graphics are just not very good. Even if it supported HD, the graphics would still look pretty bad, it just is not what the system is designed for. Some games get away with it better than others IMO... WiiSports doesn't look so bad since it is very cartoony graphics, but a game like zelda looks worse overall because of the graphics used in the game. Since it is trying to look impressive, you want to compare it to 360/PS3 games and it just doesn't even come close.

Regardless of all of this, I enjoyed the system for the few games that interested me. If it had more, I would have kept it.

 

[Yreka]

wii + HDTV looks like ass...

I originally had ours on a 57" 1080i tv, but have since moved it into the kids living room with a 32" 480i CRT. It looks much better on the smaller set.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: bigpow
I know that most Wii owners have standard def Wii and that Wii was not designed for HD, 16:9, etc - but I'm still very much curious, especially now that supply has caught up with demand and reasonable price is a reality.

It does support 16:9... just not HD resolutions. It doesn't look bad on my HDTV, although obviously not nearly as good as my 360 looks.

 

[randay]

it really has nothing to do with the wii, its more about displaying SD signals on HD LCD panels. if you got a SD CRT and a HD LCD play them side by side and youll see the difference. it doesnt have to be a signal from the wii, could be regular SDTV.

 

[CKDragon]

It depends entirely on your own tolerance for graphics. Millions and millions of people, including myself, were apparently able to stomach worse graphics as recently as a year or two ago with their PS2/Xbox/Gamecubes.

Personally, I hooked my Wii up to my 56" DLP via component cables and never looked back. The first party games like Mario Strikers Charged and Metroid look quite good. (Zelda is not really a decent barometer because it was originally slated for the Gamecube and then ported to the Wii)

Of course it's not going to match the power of my 360 Elite and there will still be plenty of crap from lazy developers. But the Wii IS capable of better graphics and hopefully the third party devs will start to put some time into their games considering the size of the user base. I'd recommend watching videos of Mario Galaxy to see a sign of what is hopefully to come for Wii owners.

(Seriously, how friggin' bad does that Crusn game look? Thanks Midway.)

 

[biggestmuff]

What to expect? Jaggies.

Some games look good like Super Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 3, but 2007 Tiger Woods Golf looks terrible. However, I'm playing on a 61" Samsung DLP. It's capable of displaying jawdropping HD content, but the 480 content of the Wii has to be really clean for it to translate well to such a large screen.

EDIT: The larger the screen the more apparent the lower resolution of the Wii will become. It will look fine with your 42".

CKDragon, that "Cruisin'" looks atrocious. You're correct about the past generation consoles and games. Even the Wii, with it's SD output, looks beeter than some of the PS2 games I have.

That reminds me, even some of the Virtual Console games look really good; better than how I remembered them. SM64 looks the worst out of the 6 or 7 games I bought and downloaded.

 

[Netscorer]

I play Wii on Samsung 56'' DLP HDTV (true 1080P) and have no problem whatsoever with graphics. A lot of Nintendo original games (for both Wii and Gamecube) are cartoonish and pretty much have no difference playing on regular vs HDTV set as cartoons can scale very well to high resolutions due to uniform tones. And for some games (like Resident Evil 4) the added harshness only benefits the game, which is already set in greyish tones. I have Xbox 360 and HD-DVD player, so I know what true 1080p signal looks like and belive me, I don't find playing Wii annoying because of the resolution at all. I just know what games to buy for Wii and what games are better suited for Xbox.
As it was already mentioned, get yourself component cables - they do help significantly.

 

[blurredvision]

I have played the Wii on my 42" LCD, and I find it to look no better or worse than if it were on a CRT. Metroid Prime 3 looks fantastic to be a 480p game. So to answer your question, no, it's not that bad, and I don't think it will be worse than anything else you view it on.

 

[BD2003]

I dunno where you heard that 480i ever looks better than 480p over component - thats just plain nonsense.

Sure, it'll look a little better on a CRT because it doesnt need to be scaled, but whether or not itll look good or bad is more to do with the quality of your TVs scaler than anything else.

 

[Slew Foot]

I play on a 50" Samsung DLP 720p. I use the component cables and notice a few jaggies in most games but less so in the first party nintendo games designed for the Wii, I.e. Metroid prime 3 looks very good. Ive noticed that many games, seem to look better on my parents old CRT 480p,

Third parties are still trying to port over stupid ps2 crap with buttons ported over to wii motions, and that doesnt work well.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Switching to component on my CRT offers a noticeable improvement. If I could also have progressive widescreen I'd take it in a heartbeat. It's not so much a question of whether or not the Wii looks better or worse and a particular type of screen, because some HDTVs are going to suck compared to others when displaying lower resolution sources.

Of course the best screen possible for the Wii is probably one of those older EDTV 480p plasmas, but considering they're pretty much phased out it would be silly to get one just for the Wii unless you have the money to throw around

 

[bigpow]

Thanks for all the feedbacks.
Some games do look poor even with 360 & 1080p (e.g. Bullet Witch).

I'm more undetermined to get a Wii or not now
It's just that I saw an HDTV commercial of Boogie, and it looked soo good...

 

[CKDragon]

Originally posted by: bigpow
Thanks for all the feedbacks.
Some games do look poor even with 360 & 1080p (e.g. Bullet Witch).

I'm more undetermined to get a Wii or not now
It's just that I saw an HDTV commercial of Boogie, and it looked soo good...

Don't get me wrong, I love my Wii, but I wouldn't get one based on Boogie.

 

[bigpow]

Ouch! Thanks for saving my bacon

Damn HD TV commercial with Cute chicks having fun playing Boogie... 8(

 

[mlm]

Originally posted by: BD2003
I dunno where you heard that 480i ever looks better than 480p over component - thats just plain nonsense.

Sure, it'll look a little better on a CRT because it doesnt need to be scaled, but whether or not itll look good or bad is more to do with the quality of your TVs scaler than anything else.

People have said that it looks worse because being in 480p exposes the flaws (jaggies) that may not be visible in 480i.

I think it's supposed to be a bigger problem for PAL games though.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: mlm

Originally posted by: BD2003
I dunno where you heard that 480i ever looks better than 480p over component - thats just plain nonsense.

Sure, it'll look a little better on a CRT because it doesnt need to be scaled, but whether or not itll look good or bad is more to do with the quality of your TVs scaler than anything else.

People have said that it looks worse because being in 480p exposes the flaws (jaggies) that may not be visible in 480i.

I think it's supposed to be a bigger problem for PAL games though.

Well, if a blurry, extremely low res mess with input lag caused by the now necessary deinterlacing is preferable to a sharp, albeit not HD image, then I suppose its worse.

 

[sciencewhiz]

Originally posted by: BD2003
Well, if a blurry, extremely low res mess with input lag caused by the now necessary deinterlacing is preferable to a sharp, albeit not HD image, then I suppose its worse.

You get what you pay for (with the TV). It's not the Wii's fault you bought a cheap TV.

 

[Dumac]

The Wii looks much better in 480p over component on my 37'' HDTV than on the composite cables I used to have it on..